


The Boy and His Bird

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Bird hybrid Dave, F/F, F/M, Human-Animal Hybrids, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sadstuck, this is a fucking disaster. it's just waiting to happen., well. fuck.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1218124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a teenager is hard, everyone knows that. But being a teenager like you.. it's different. It's pretty hard making friends when you live in a dilapidated apartment, and have wings fucking <i>sewn</i> into your back.</p><p>That is, until you met <i>him</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dipshitHarlequin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dipshitHarlequin/gifts).



> An overdue Christmas present for a friend. I've orphaned this work, however, as it's been several years since I wrote it. I was 13. Now I am 18. I won't be finishing it. If you are curious about this work and the plot, or how it ends, please message me at @ayuemui on twitter or tumblr.
> 
> Happy days lie ahead.

It’s cold.  
  
You’re quite certain you hear the sound of people chattering in annoyance at the weather. It could always be the rhythmic pitter-patter of raindrops falling on the roof above. But you doubt it.  
  
You’re watching. Always. Sometimes young children play in the street below, and you watch them. Not in a weird or stalker-ish way, no. But you long for the memories they will have, of laughter and joy and love. A carefree place.  
  
Maybe if, for once, you actually went outside, they would accept you. Maybe they would ignore the dead skin on your face, the once-colorful wings attached to your spine. Maybe they would accept you for who you are and not what you are, or what you may represent to them. But you know this isn’t a realistic thought. The time you live in now consists of people who would rather die than be who they are. It’s funny, really, how frightened you are to interact with people, although you are a person.  
  
Of course, you are a person. You’re just... different.  
  
The sky is a dreary gray color, and the clouds that are sparsely scattered across the sky remind you of the feathers strewn across the floors of your apartment. You sit on the windowsill, watching. Waiting.  
  
The apartment is abandoned, of course. You’ve been living alone for who knows how long, really. You’ve managed to get what you need to survive. Not too much, but not too little. Just enough to keep you alive, and that was it.  
  
You drop from the windowsill into your room. Or what you think is your room, and what is left of it. The room has obviously been in better times than this, and you can tell. There is evidence here and there of a small fire, you what you can guess to be one. You can’t exactly remember anything before the Incident, which had occurred six months or so ago.  
  
And you can’t remember ever going outside, other than to wander your abandoned domain.  
  
It is on these occasional walks that you get your occasional glimpse of the outside world. You’ve found small things here and there, things that people had presumably left behind. A ring in-between the cushions of a couch. A television monitor abandoned on a counter. The things that you enjoy finding the most are objects of a shiny sheen. Although it irritates you to admit it, it sounds like a cruel joke on your crow-like wings. But you put up with it. Probably because these are the valuable possessions that people have left behind, and at some point, loved.  
  
Real people.  
  
You move to the old, creaky bed and sit down gently. Your bones ache, probably from lack of exercise, and the bed groans quietly with protest. Your senses are still sharp enough to the point where you can hear the noise, even though they should be damaged beyond repair.  
  
This room is where you woke up, nearly seven months ago. You can’t even remember how you got there, what was going on, or what you were thinking at the time. It had never occurred to you to write anything down, since it didn’t seem necessary at the time. And that was one of your greatest regrets. But now, you long for the ability to remember your past, to know what had happened to you to create a monster.  
  
You sometimes wonder if you did it yourself.  
  
The chance of this actually happening is slim. You aren’t entirely familiar with what one would consider common sense, but you aren’t stupid. If you put wings on a boy, he still would not be able to fly. But you can. It’s funny, really. The wings are large enough for you to fly, but small enough to enable you to squeeze in through the window. Go-fucking-figure.  
  
But with the ability for such a heavy creature to fly comes with disadvantages. You can’t fly for very long, neither can you carry anything while flying. You attempted to carry a flowerpot once, but nearly broke your left wing as you practically fucking swan-dived into a tree. You haven’t tried moving it since. You wouldn’t want to rip your wings out accidentally. The pain that would follow would surely kill you, and you don’t consider death an option.  
  
You remember very little from your past life, if you even had one to begin with. The only thing you know for certain is that your name is Dave. You have no fucking idea what your last name is, or if you actually had one. Even then, you aren’t even sure if you have any kin. The thought is unlikely.  
  
But at least you know your own name, you think grimly.  
  
==>  
  
A few hours later, you find yourself on a mindless stroll through the dark corridors of the apartments. You always bring something back as a memoir of your walk. A broken bit of metal here, a torn and nearly scorched pillow there. You remember a while back that you used to try and play like the children you sometimes watched. It was silly, but you tried. Maybe it was because you looked much older than they did, but you never really enjoyed yourself.  
  
You don’t see the children play by themselves as often.  
  
Entering one of the rooms the farthest away from your own, a strong smell hits you and the idea comes to mind that there may be mice living here once again. You always manage to flush them out, but no. It is simply another scorched bottle of who-knows-what beginning to rot. You throw it out.  
  
In the next apartment, you happen to come across something you haven’t seen before. You pick it up to study it, and the word comes to mind as you whisper it with your harsh, dry throat.  
  
A battery.  
  
It’s probably stupid to consider you finding a battery being poetic, but you often think of yourself as far beyond insanity anyway. The energy is cooped up in the circular object, much like how you are cooped up in the large apartment.  
  
You take the battery with you into the next room. The wallpaper is old, peeling, and faded. There are burn marks seared along the carpet, but you hardly take notice. You glance in the closet, and find something you hadn’t expected to find. A sweater.  
  
It hardly seems to occur to you as strange, finding a sweater that looked newer than it should be in an otherwise tedious home. The edges of the sleeves are faded, and it is an unusually bright red color. There is a strange symbol on the front that you cannot quite recognize, but recall seeing in one of the clocks upstairs. A gear, you think. You pull on the hoodie and find it uncomfortable with your wings. You immediately pull it off.  
  
You cut strips of fabric out of the other things you wore, which stuck to your scarred and thin body like a wet page. You need somewhere to put these wings, and it would probably be considered animalistic if you went out without clothes. But you can’t imagine tearing such a bright thing in a world of darkness, so you just take the hoodie with you. It could be used as a blanket at night.  
  
==>  
  
You’re curled up on the old futon, surrounded by soft pillows and toys and clutching the hoodie to your chest. Your wings manage to fold uncomfortably, but it’s too painful to rest on your back. A feather flutters onto the floor when you shift positions.  
  
You remember your earlier months, little after you had woken up. Your wings were a nicer, lighter color then. Not this dried out, musty black that they are now. You love color. You try to cling to the brightest bits, hoping that it just may trigger something from your past. This usually never happens. You tell yourself it doesn’t hurt to try.  
  
You start to wonder what it would be like to have kin.  
  
Sometimes you would see two children who looked rather similar playing together. Often they would fight, and stomp away from one another, but they would always be reunited. Maybe the bond between them is a lot stronger than you had originally thought.  
  
But even if you had kin, would they have the same awful wings you do? Better yet, even if you ever found them, would they like you? The thought seems improbable.  
  
But what about a friend? The word seems too warm, too innocent to you.  
  
You push the thought into the deepest, darkest corners of your mind for another time. With friends comes trouble.  
  
==>  
  
It’s been seven days since you’ve found the hoodie, and tonight you find yourself wandering onto the roof. You sit on the very edge, gazing out into the street below. As the area is mostly abandoned save for a few busy streets and a playground, there aren’t many people out now. The ones that are awake tend to ignore you. A couple nuzzling near a flickering streetlamp. A woman attempting to fix her damaged vehicle.  
  
You notice something down on the street below, and consider retrieving it. The thought, however, is quickly dismissed when you attempt to stretch your wings. A searing pain settles in your spine, and you hiss quietly under your breath. You quickly decide against the action. Flying now would be just too risky. You would have to wait for the wing to heal. The unknown object would still be there tomorrow.  
  
You look back up, at the bit of city light you can see from here. It’s beautiful, you think. You often remember seeing people tucked into their electronic devices, continuously ignoring the beauty around them. God, how you long for the things they have. You crave the ability to be able to be free, without having to live in constant fear of being caught. You wonder why they are so occupied with a phone when they could enjoy the beauty around them. You want to be them.  
  
But then again you are a dreadful, revolting thing. It was terrible, knowing that freedom was in your sights but not in your grasp.  
  
And you hated it.  
  
==>  
  
Weeks pass without incident. You feel yourself slowly crumbling away each day, the longing to fly and be free nearly blinding. Your wing seems to be healing, but you don’t feel any relief. You don’t feel the bones having mended back in place, even though it doesn’t send searing pain up your spine anymore.  
  
But you’ve come to the realization that you’re alone. You’ll never figure out what had happened to you all those years ago, neither will you ever be able to fly again. You wonder if there’s any way you can make it all stop. You’ve already ruled out death. You wouldn’t be able to, you grimly think.  
  
You’re drifting around the vacant hallways as usual, waiting once more. A shuffle downstairs answers your silent call for a sign. There is a small, almost silent intake of breath as someone hauls their way up the stairs. You nearly bust your ass ducking into the corridor. Far enough to be out of sight, but close enough to study the stranger.  
  
It’s a boy.  
  
He’s either your age or slightly younger, you decide. He’s dressed in a way that tells you he goes to a school, and probably a good one. His hair is the messiest thing you’ve ever seen, and that’s coming from you. It’s dark and messy, and you catch a glimpse of his eyes. You suspected them to be brown, maybe, but they shine in a light cobalt color. He looks to the right and left, warily, and then settles against the wall of the hallway. He’s taken no notice of you yet, as you are smashed to the wall in a way that makes your knees ache.  
  
You decide you shouldn’t disturb him just yet. He will probably notice you at some point, but you can’t take the risk for him to see you now.  
  
No.  
  
You decide to wait.  
  
The first thing he does after several minutes is look around. It seems likely that he didn’t notice the dilapidated state of the apartment when he entered, and this causes you to question why he would have been in such a hurry in the first place. He walks into one of the rooms. You suspect he thinks he’s going rather quietly, by the way he pulls himself onto his toes when he walks. He might as well have been broadcasting himself to the entire fucking region.  
  
He looks to the left, studying your treasure pile. You can’t read what he is thinking, but you wish you could. The little you can understand from his facial expressions tells you that he is intrigued by the placement of the miscellaneous belongings. He stands to walk out into the hall, and you cower into the shadows, praying to whatever god is out there that he won’t notice you. You tuck your wings against your back, and your knees creak angrily in protest. But being seen is a situation far more dangerous than sore knees in the morning.  
  
You’re rather relieved for your sense of order in organizing, otherwise the state of your apartment could have been much worse. He picks up what looks to be your music box. It’s plain, really, with a few drawn fairies on the side. They were more innocent and child-like than anything else you’d seen in this apartment, and they were one of the only things you’ve trusted to be truly blameless. It’s his grimy, dirty hands on your precious treasure that flares you up. You bristle quietly in anger, and your feathers ruffle furiously. How dare he touch your things! Your treasures, the things you bothered to collect and clean every day! They were the world to you.  
  
And he’s taking them away.  
  
They aren’t your things, you scream out in your mind, keep away from them! He seems to hear the quiet whisper of your ruffled feathers, because he raises his head with alarm. His gaze meets yours and he pulls back his arm in preparation to throw. You raise a hand to defend yourself, mourning the loss of the music box. You close your eyes and prepare for the impact, the dreadful crack of your lost love.  
  
It never comes.  
  
You open your eyes to find out why this kid hasn’t beated the shit out of you yet. Not that he could. You’d probably win him over in a fight with your size. But it would probably only be considered a fair fight because of how undernourished you are.  
  
And there he is, still clutching the music box in a white-knuckled grip. His arms are shaking, and you can tell he’s probably scared out of his mind. But anyone would be, you think irritably. You lower your arm, and he slowly lowers his own. It takes a few harsh growls for you to actually form the words, and it’s a miracle that you can say anything at all.  
  
“Who are you?” you rasp.  
  
He looks taken aback. Maybe he thought you couldn’t speak at all, or maybe he wasn’t expecting the question. Either way, he’s stopped shaking. A little.  
  
“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” he whimpers, almost inaudibly. You resist the urge to laugh. Kill him?  
  
“Now why,” you reply tiredly, “would I do that?”  
  
“You aren’t like a beast or anything, are you? Uh.. I mean, like, you don’t raid homes and eat children, do you?” he accuses, then quickly adds, “Not that I am a kid. Because I’m not.”  
  
“No, I do not raid villages, and I do not eat children. They aren’t suited to my tastes. I prefer adults.” You growl, enjoying the look on his face when you say it. Then, in a less frightening voice you say, “Just kidding. No, I don’t eat children. I like chips, though.”  
  
He looks relieved, and you quickly bring the real question back into place. “You didn’t answer my question.” You accuse. “Who are you?”  
  
“John,” he says. “Egbert. And you?”  
  
You hesitate for a moment. “Dave,” you tell him, “my name is Dave.”  
  
“Dave,” he repeats, slowly and uncertainly. The word hangs uncomfortably in the thick silence between you both, sounding more unfamiliar to you than it should. John studies you more closely, your grotesque facial features, your battered wings, your scarred and battered body. You twitch awkwardly beneath his sapphire gaze. Maybe if you pull your wings tightly enough against your body they would vanish. Then again, that usually didn’t work.  
  
“Your wings,” he says slowly. “How do they support you?”  
  
“Fuck if I know,” you mutter loudly. “They haven’t been all that loving to me ever since I took a nose-dive into Pain Town. I’m human enough, if that’s what you’re going to ask.” But you’re not sure if you even believe it yourself. John bites his lip and stares at the floor, his knuckles white from the tight grip he holds on your music box. He catches your eye, and looks rather embarrassed.  
  
“This is yours, right? This music box? If you live here, it must be yours, right? I’ve only seen one other one, at my nanna’s house.” He extends the hand holding the precious music box, gesturing for you to take it. You reach out in response, careful not to touch him directly with your disfigured hands. You take the music box back and cradle it like a lost pup. John smiles a little. Makes you wonder how those teeth manage to fit in his mouth.  
  
“You know how to use it, right?”  
  
“’Course.” You grumble, turning it over in your hands and taking the key. Carefully, you wind it up, listening intently for the familiar tinkle sure to come. Come it does. The soft tinkle startles your sharper senses at first, but it’s strangely soothing as always. You close your eyes and keep your breathing as quiet as you possibly can, not wanting to disturb the soft hum. The tune ends as soon as it begins, and you mourn the loss of such a beautiful thing.  
  
You rewind it once, twice, and three times to keep the song buried in your memory. You’d never heard anything as breathtaking and innocent as the gentle sound of the music box. And when you look up, John’s grin has managed to split his face in two. How does he keep all those in his mouth? Nonetheless, you manage a tiny smirk of your own. Just a smidgen.  
  
John looks at your other piles, the things you’ve gathered in your time here. His eyes are wide, and you’re pretty impressed with your find, if you do say so yourself. Even if they are just simple household items. Their value to you is priceless, and the kid himself probably knows this.  
  
“Where did you get these things? I mean, sure, they’re just normal things. But you’ve organized them so well1 How long have you been here?” he asks curiously, leaning over to study them.  
  
“I find them,” you admit, “and I’ve been here seven months. I don’t go outside, but I do stay here in the apartment.”  
  
“Seven months,” he repeats, first in awe, then with a trace of worry. “Seven months.”  
  
John looks up to stare out the window, probably towards the children playing off in the distance. It’s impossible to hear them this far out, the wind does not carry their joyful cries. You watch his fists clench and unclench, showing him in deep thought. You look down, finding the floor to be suddenly interesting. The thick silence returns once more, and you’re not sure how long it lasts. Finally, he looks at you, and you raise your gaze to meet his.  
  
“I’ll be your friend.” He says, and it’s definitely something you didn’t quite expect.  
  
You stare. “What.”  
  
“It’s not right for anyone to be alone by themselves!” he exclaims, looking shocked. “I thought you were angry and scary at first, y’know, but I think you’re just a kid like me. Just more lonely. You need someone to talk to. People who are lonely tend to go insane.”  
  
I’m already insane, you think bitterly. But he’s probably right. About the insane bit, that is. You’d be doomed to forever walk these corridors until you die, never knowing your real purpose. Anyone could be driven to insanity from that thought alone.  
  
“I can’t stay here much longer for today, but I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.” he continues. “I’ll bring you some books tomorrow, and some food. No offense dude, but you look terrible.”  
  
“Look, kid,” you say, but he interrupts you.  
  
“My name is John.” He reminds you patiently.  
  
“John,” you continue irritably. “You shouldn’t even be here. God knows what brought you here, but you should probably just scuttle the fuck off. Not trying to be rude or anything, but I’m about ninety percent sure that a teenage kid lurking some old apartments would be considered suspicious. You know what that means, right? Phone calls. You know what phone calls mean? Police. And that means trouble. Trouble meaning you getting in trouble. You look more like some kinda fuckin’ saint to me, but maybe not to them. For fuck’s sake, you don ‘t even know me. Is it really worth the risk, coming to this place to meet some bird-kid you don’t even know, when you could land yourself in a pile of ‘I fucked up’?”  
  
You’re pretty sure that even if he were caught, you’d be worse off than he is. Much worse. You’re not only a freak with wings, but a freak with scars. And if you tried to get away, they’d probably shoot you. Or worse. But you’ve gotta put appeal first.  
  
John’s reaction is immediate. “No one’s gonna catch me. I’m smart, and I’m fast. I’ll just run here as soon as school ends. The police have better things to do than watch me. There are a lot of other bad people out there that they have to deal with. I’m not a number one problem right now.”  
  
“You’re better off going home.” You tell him briskly. But you don’t think you mean it. And he knows.  
  
“Tomorrow,” he says, gathering his things. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”  
  
Before you can object, he’s gone. You want to stop him, but instead you just watch as he hightails it down the stairs. You expect for him to trip several times, but sure enough, he manages to make it out into the street. You keep watching until he disappears around a corner.  
  
You’ve got a long day ahead of you.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."_  
>   
> 
> \- C.S Lewis

There is a sharp crack that startles you from tranquil slumber, and you jolt to attention as you nearly fling yourself out of the comfortable winged chair with astonishment.

Another nightmare.

Something you've managed to come to after these weeks is that even if you do not sleep, the nightmares pluck you from the living world as easily as a grape from the vine. The darkness is something you are familiar, even friendly, with, but most definitely not in a situation that leaves you damp and breathless with your screams slicing through the damp, eerily silent air.

As you settle back into the comfortable chair, slouching into a sprawl, you temporarily forget that you are not in your sweet, aching heaven of a bed, but rather in this chair in the apartment's lobby. Beams of sunlight break through cracks in the wall, and you are in a dazed, groggy state. It's a couple of moments before you can so much as look around.

It isn't the middle of the afternoon, but not quite high daylight either, with the sun hanging from the sky and using the stringy clouds as a tightrope. It's bright, all right, just that little pinprick of sunlight is enough to sting. And you rub your eyes painfully as you make a serious attempt to really sit up.

The lobby is empty other than you, as usual, and the moths that occasionally gather to savage what they can of fallen curtains and abandoned fabrics. The peeling paints and the gathering dust among the walls remind you that this is one of the only spaces you haven't tidied up, and that it's time to get to work.

You haul your ass from the chair, your wing muscles twitching with protest. You grimace at the pain, giving a short "Damn," as you pick up your trusty duster, which you have learned to take everywhere. You lose yourself in dusting the walls for a minute, before reality snaps at you like a coiled spring.

John.

That was his name, the boy who had come the previous day to hide in your empty abode, and he was the boy who had promised to come back today to meet you. You aren't sure what the time is, but by the positions of the shadows from the natural sunlight flooding the room, you guess it's around that time. Cleaning up is your first thought. You move to a mirror to inspect yourself.

You think of yourself as being rather tall, compared to the doors and other considerably large furnishings around the apartment. You may have bleached your hair before The Incident, but it seems unlikely. Your messy, scraggly blondish locks hang forward a bit limply, and your lightly frecked, pale and scarred face frames the red orbs you call home. The only color on you. The color of your funny hood. You don a white, faded shirt, the image on it uninterpretable and worn. Your pants and shirt cling to you as if wet, and your ribs are certainly viewable against your lanky torso. You grimace once more.

At least you showered yesterday.

Often you consider heading outside to find a proper place to bathe, but across from your humble abode resides a town pool, with showers. You scale the fence in the cover of night from time to time, entering the showers within the public bathrooms to wash yourself. You're careful to keep your wings from the spray of water, and the scent of the showers scrapes along your senses like a citrusy haven. People often leave behind what you think is soap, and you scrub the stubborn ick from your skin and hair. It leaves you smelling nice and clean other than your dusty, scraggly wings. You usually wet a cloth and clean them up a bit. Getting them soaked isn't an option. 

"Obviously. Probably would be too heavy to lug my own ass home. Soaked feathers. Why couldn't I at least be a damn duck, for fuck's sake?" You don't realize that this slips out, and the echoing of your own voice in the usually empty abode startles you slightly.

Not as much as the hard crack of shoes on the pavement, it seems. You almost hit the ceiling with the unfamiliar sound, and then it softens to a careful shuffling. Someone's nearby, damp and breathless.  
You turn quickly from the mirror with a sharp, birdlike shriek. The intruder jumps with a startled cry of "Dave!" and you tense. And then, gradually, you relax.

It's John.

He's astonished, of course, because you had shrieked and surprised the both of you with the harsh sound of your raspy call. You both are staring at each other with a peculiar pair of expressions, even as relaxed as you now are. 

And then he begins to laugh, and you are still a bit shocked again. Now even more so, with his reaction.

"Dave," he repeats, with another musical laugh, "I was a bit scared there! You yelled pretty damn loud. Oh, I came back, like I said I would. I also brought you some snacks! You must not always get food, living without anyone helping you. At least, that's what I'm guessing, since you got all irritable about everyone being 'out to get you' or whatever."

You furrow your eyebrows a bit subconsciously. He was, at least, partially correct. There was the occasional bag of chips that made it's way into your scarred grasp, and the unawared help from the homeless who accidentally left any kind of supply around the apartment. It wasn't as if you didn't feel the occasional pang of desperate hunger, but it was much duller than it should have been for a growing, mutated bird boy. You often connect this to the Incident, if not anything else. As you dwindle on these thoughts, John snaps you to attention with the clearing of his throat. The world comes back to view, your thoughts wash away. He's sitting on the floor, his legs crossed and he's holding a sandwich, and he's _eating_ it with one hand, and offering you a similar meal with the other.

"Dave. You alright? You seem to be spacing out there, man. I asked if you wanted a sandwich. Since you don't eat children, of course. " John adds with a grin. You offer him a small, upward crack of the edges of your lips. 

"Hah. Thanks." Gratefully, you accept the sandwich, tearing away the plastic wrap protecting it, and sink your teeth into the meal. "Delifffious. Delefable."

John chuckles at your weak attempt to compliment his sandwich-making skills. You make quick work of said sandwich, wolfing it down to satisfy you ravaging hunger, and he gives you some fruit. Strawberries, orange slices, delicious bits of color that hastily make their way past your lips.

"I managed to convince my dad about me making two sandwiches instead of one this morning. Which is great! I mean, I told him I was extra hungry, which wasn't exactly a lie. Not exactly. He's a great dad, although sometimes he can be a little strange. But I guess all people are strange like that, personality-wise, right?" He continues to speak as you eat, and you finally respond after the final, wonderful bite of red fruit.

"Before I say anything, thanks for the food, and thanks for coming back. Not that I didn't think you would, of course. I was just, y'know, tidying up until you got here. God damn, what would I do if I didn't have a clean home ready for the princess?"

"Heh, you're welcome!" He replies cheerily, with a smile that splits his cheeks. "I thought you might like the strawberries. I think that they're really sweet! We grow them in our own garden."

"Fuckin' hell, yes." With a shake of your head, you agree with him wholeheartedly. "The strawberries were truly a confectionary treat worthy of only the highest deities. And about what you said. I mean, everyone's gotta have a personality of their own, right? Maybe living in this shitwteck of a humble abode doesn't give me much experience with people, but personalities are 'unique' and all that cliché jazz. You can't just jump into the bargain bin and expect to find one without any flaws. Is this a fucking children's movie?"

"That was pretty deep."

"Because it's true." You wave your hand dismissingly. "Course, I might be dumb saying things like that to a near-stranger, but it's something that even a stranger would need to know. Seriously."

"Stranger." John mused, tapping his fingers idly along the seams of his khaki shorts. "I'd like to think that we could be friends at some point, Dave. What do you think?"

Bold move. Then again, you admired it plenty. You fiddled with the idea for a moment, tossing it from palm to palm and feeling it melt between your fingers. Friends. Maybe, you think. Because even if John was a near-stranger, he looked less harmless than any police or homeless person you'd seen. Not that you'd met them, no, but you can tell plenty of a person by how they act. And with this information, you click your tongue and mark John Egbert as trustworthy.

"Maybe." You finally respond, the corners of your mouth rising a bit. "If you keep bringing me these treats, though. That'd be preferable. Feed the hungry monster, and he'll consider sparing your miserable life. Got it?"

"Really?" John snickered, holding a sarcastic drone on his voice. "Because if you're gonna befriend me for my tasty treats, I hardly consider it a fair deal. The 'monster' will probably pull a fast one."

You chortle a bit at this. "Of course. You've caught me. Tie my hands and wings, give me a red blindfold and make me walk the plank. It's all over for me now, y'know. Tell my friends and associates that I told them to go fuck themselves. Dump my possessions in the ocean. Cremate my body."

That got away from you. It didn't flow out as smoothly as your usual drawl, didn't run over the rocks like H2O. It sounded chunky and sharp, really, and you come to the conclusion that you haven't talked to a person other than John basically ever. You were used to speaking by yourself. Which was also weird as hell. Fuck.

==>

The sky is growing thick with puffy, gray cotton clouds as you take him around back to see the Project. It was a part of the apartment complex they never finished, you suppose. Another addition to the endless asscrack mystery of the Incident. The buildings were, for the most part, cleanly lined up the block like Jenga towers, and this was an abrupt exception. It was an abandoned construction site, looking wistful and misplaced beside the orderly line.

You moved around carefully during the day. The bones in your body creak and groan with protest as you pulled your wings tightly against your back, but no harm done. It would be better for someone to make out a clunky, teenage shape in the shadows of the looming buildings than a mutated one. John had scoffed at you after asking if you'd show him around a little, and you reluctantly agreed. Not too much, not yet. You needed time to know this kid. Right now, you'd humor him with the laziness of the town's government.

"They didn't so much as bother to try with the building after whatever the hell happened with.. well, whatever excuse for a political smackdown they had 'round here." You say, as John creeps with you along the tall shadows of the buildings. "It's cool to look at, I guess. Isn't much cover in the daylight, so I don't hang around it all that often."

"So, they just dropped everything and left? Left all the materials behind and everything? That's a waste." John replies, looking a bit incredulous. 

"Yeah." _A waste._ "Kind of stupid. But it's probably been years anyway. Don't lose your shit."

"Wasn't planning on it." This makes your lips turn upward oddly.

Your footsteps are light and smooth as you approach the broken, halfway-finished building. It looks awful. The bricks are dull, the color of your tattered feathers and horribly unattractive. The sliced tower of stone is hardly half the height of the others, and there are scaffolds still in place along the sides. Old and rusty, stretching along the bricks like metallic vines. They reached upwards, for the sky, and it's this that pulls you from your stupid, poetic world and back to John. Mostly, because he seems to be trying to climb them. 

And he is. John's pulled himself forcibly up two levels of scaffolds already, and this makes you frown a bit. He heaves a groan as he climbs up onto a wooden plank along the center, obviously to stand and sit on the scaffold. Hauling his ass along it and eventually sitting straight up, he grins down at you triumphantly. You all but glower at the cocky grin splitting his cheeks.

How the _fuck_ do all those teeth fit in there?

"Come down." You all but bark, and he crosses his arms. "You're gonna fall, and break your goddamn cranium. Then I'm gonna get caught."

"Typical bird man." John scoffs. "Or should I say boy? Still, so very selfless of you. Caring about the cops more than my wellbeing, then?"

"If you cared half as much," you point out dryly, "you'd at least come to solid ground."

John rolls his eyes, you think, and you uncomfortably shift your feet on the pavement. God dammit, he's gonna make a fucking scene or some shit, then you're bound to get caught. Irritably, you say his name. "John. Kid."

"Just John." He says, and then wriggles his hand oddly at you. "Come up here, then. The view's alright. Look, the sun's vanishing behind the clouds and everything. That means no one will see you as easily."

You mull over this for a few seconds, fingers clenching and unclenching. John's own digits tap idly along the wooden, makeshift bench as you watch him. He clears his throat, and you grudgingly nod. What's the worst- ah, no. You won't finish that fucking question. If you do, fate's gonna shove a stick the size of a sequoia up your anus. Better just scramble up the scaffold's ladders.

John's slow, candy-ish grin is enough to cause you to give him a Look. He rolls his eyes, obviously unfazed by your annoyance with his smugness. It doesn't do all that much to distract you from how hard the climb up the ladders is, of course. 

It's taxing to move far up them. Very much so, you realize, with the harsh aching of your joints as you raise your legs to the rungs. It's another grim reminder of the fact that you don't get out much, and the thought of making a joke of your pitiful situation is playful on your tongue before you shove it away. That's dumb, don't spoil the moment with ridiculous teenage angst. You had to finish climbing and wipe the smirk clean from his assholish face. 

Sweat beads along your forehead as you agonizingly haul yourself over the top where John rested. It's an awkward position at first, upper torso doubled over onto the wood with your legs still dangling over the edge. You manage to roll up and over, pulling yourself with a gasp to John's side. He raises an eyebrow, opens his mouth, but says nothing. The hard, gripping sense of brief determination even over something so trivial still courses through you. It reminds you slightly of the Incident, you think, while you sit a ways from John and stare into the distance.

This isn't as impressive a view as you'd hoped, but it's for the best. Someone could see you, obviously, then you'd be royally fucked upwards to Greenland. The Autumn breeze teases your hair and John's, lightly dancing along your skin as you watched the sky over the trees. 

The silence was not awkward and heavy, but rather comforting. The sun was most definitely beginning to vanish, the endless sea of blue above just beginning to be stained with light auburn near the horizon. You looked to John, whose gaze was fixated on the slow descent. His dark hair whipped up slightly in the wind as gently as your own, and his eyes closed for a moment. Then, he sighs.

"It's great, isn't it? Bet you don't get this much sun inside, huh?" John says, and you laugh in a strange, almost bittersweet way. But it's so true, the sunlight was warm and comforting on your completely-exposed skin. Other than what flooded the rooms through cracks and partially boarded windows, it was a rarity for you to step into the sunlight. It's almost too stupidly cliché, even for your impressibly dry humor. Even an oldie with the most antediluvian sense of humor wouldn't immediately link your lack of the big D (haha) with sparkly vampirism.

You think that one went a little too far, as usual. 

"I guess not." You reply, and he blinks with that trademark grin at you. And, abruptly, he jumps slightly at a soft noise. John pulls something small and rectangular and kind of _shiny_ from his pocket, and the face of it is lit brightly.

"Oh, my dad's texting me." John mutters, sounding embarrassed as he types animatedly at the screen of the device. You quirk an eyebrow, and he shrugs. "This is a phone."

"I know what it is." You say, snorting. "I'm not an alien, I mentioned phone calls yesterday as well."

John rolls his eyes at you, casting his gaze back to the phone. "Uh, I gotta go. Dad's after me again. God knows why, though. I mean.. uh."

You wave a hand dismissively at him, with a short shrug of 'hey, go off and do your thing, man. I'll just be the wayward hobo in the apartment buildings.. oh, did I mention that I am also a bird?'

He doesn't catch on to this, however. John raises an eyebrow, though, with a short chuckle. "Y'know, pretty awful how I have to leave already, and you just now pulled yourself up here. Think you can get down without my help?"

"Of course," you say immediately, despite your own doubts, "I'll have you know- once I was a two-time champion in the birdfights in Dallas."

"What about the other times, then?" John asks, smartly, and laughs as you are forced into silence. He gets up, in an awkward position as he begins to slowly shimmy around you, and towards the ladder downward.

"I'll see you again, maybe?" He asks, and this is the moment where you look over him for one second, two. Then, you nod, slowly.

"Yeah, I'll see you in the morning," you say, and then slowly add, "could you bring more food, by any actual chance?"

It's a little silent as he dangles on the ladder, staring at you. Then he laughs, shakes his head, and exclaims, "Duh, you could have asked for food anyway! You should see your face right now, it's pretty great."

"Thanks," you retort, but not unkindly, "I'll make sure to wear it more often."

Even as John slowly descends the ladder and walks away with his head held high, your eyes are trained on his back as he walks up the road. And far, far away from your broken home.

You stay up on the platform as the sun drops down the horizon, staining the sky in magnificent colors that you'd only dreamed of. Thinking. Watching and observing, because it was easier to see from up here. Looking in the sun was unpleasant at the least, and the heat was only mildly uncomfortable. But you had to admit, it was better than stuffier nights in your makeshift room with the pitter patter of broken pipes in the bathroom. Even the wood at this rate felt comfortable, and you briefly wondered how realistic the situation could truly be. But the sight of children on a playground not far past the abandoned apartment complex had caught your attention, and you watched with newfound interest until the sun had completed its journey through the sky for the day.

You wondered, as the sky fell to indigo and the air grew cooler, if you could take a dip in the pool. The hot air of the late afternoon on your back made your skin sticky and pretty gross, honestly. What you needed was a cold dip, but your first problem was the scaffolds, and the task of getting down.

Footplay is tricky, and your bones are in sharp protest. It takes you about eight minutes, you think, for your feet to hit the pavement. Relaxing on the solidity of the ground, you then pick up your pace to a brisk walk as you move across the parking lot to the pool. The fence is what you'd like to say as easily scaled, but it takes you a frustrating moment or two to not accidentally fall over. You plop down on the other side, remove your shirt with a bit of difficulty (thanks to your fucking wings) and a bit of pain, and strip from your pants. Undergarments what were you kept on, and you were quick to move to the pool edge, where you quickly dipped in.

The water was satisfyingly cold after such a humid day, and you huff a sigh of relief after several seconds of having settled in the three foot deep area on the steps, keeping your wings clear of the water. You couldn't fully submerge, that was obvious. Wings did not like water, that's a fact.

After a bit of soaking in the pool, feeling the creak of your aching joints be relaxed, you hauled yourself from the water. The gentle _slip slap_ of your feet was heard, and you looked down to your reflection in the pool as you stood at its edge. The moon high above cast itself behind your head in the mirror image, and when you spread your hands, it gave you an ethereal feeling. It felt light, very perfect. Then again, you mused, you weren't sure what that meant.

The night was silent save for soft echoes of animals in the distance, and you ducked into the public bathroom to cleanse the dirt from the weeks of solitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've returned. this work will have weekly updates from now on, and after this chapter things will really start to pick up! if you have any suggestions, leave a comment! if you enjoy the story, leave kudos! criticism to crucial to a story's outcome, any author will tell you that. 
> 
> my tumblr is lysolstrider.tumblr.com if you're interested.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."_
> 
> \- _J.K Rowling_

You wake up with a startled jolt, light flooding in the bathroom and spots dancing in your eyes when your head lolls off of your shoulder. 

How long did you manage to _sleep_?

The smell of citrus lingering in the air tells you that you must have taken a shower in the bleached stall before dozing off on one of the benches. But if you fell asleep, and there was light in the miniature windows hanging near the edge of the showers, then what time was it? 

You almost slip twice on the still-wet floor as you hastily scramble for the door, peeping out into the open. The outdoor pool, ranging to 9-ft deep, is still vacant. The sky tells you that it is very early morning, and you can _probably_ get home without much notice from curious bystanders if you hurried.

You almost forget that you are wearing little but your underwear, now clean from yesterday's designated "mop up". Cursing, you move to your damp clothes on the rack and pull them on with a lot of shouted profanity at your own stupidity. Really! Falling asleep in this place? It would have been fine in the apartment, goddamnit, you could have fallen asleep on the concrete in the parking lot and it wouldn't have been so much of a problem!

Maybe it's really trivial, you think sullenly as you scale the fence back towards the apartment, but little things eventually get bigger. Yeah, you're pretty much always tired, but that couldn't escalate further. What if you fell asleep in the pool? The consequences would end up with a dead bird kid, and probably a lot of experiments on your body. Not that you feel it if you died, but you'd rather rest in peace. Not in pieces.

The pool was adjacent to the apartments, though still a stretch of distance thanks to the fact that no one would really want to swim next to a practical graveyard. The park's playground is beside it, and it was most likely for entertainment reasons, that was for sure. It gave you a pretty sight, at least.

Jogging at a slow pace, you don't stop until you at least reach the first building, rooms 612 and downward. The lowest room number was 415. You didn't question this. The stretch of soot and ash and corroded metal beside the final building was enough to answer any questions you had.

Really, "corroded" was a heavy misnomer. The apartment seemed to be absolutely destroyed, torn limb from limb of its steely basis, and left in a pile to rot. The building looms over you like a worrisome parent, and you give a shrug of why the hell not before you step into the first room, 612.

You wonder if you'd even entered this place before. This particular room held a strange aura and smell to it, as weird as that sounded. The furniture is nicely arranged and covered with only a single layer of dust- a vestige of whatever orderly person lived here before. The maroon color of the room persisted in its furniture style, and empty picture frames adorned the walls. But there was an unfamiliar sight on the coffee table beside a single love-seat, and you frown sharply as you pick it up, and turn it over.

It's a photograph that almost hurts your eyes to look at. Four smiling children against a brick background, and a plaque reading "612" is placed on the wall behind them. Their eyes are full of joy, but there's a strange trait about the picture that sends a frigid spike up your spine.

Something is very strange about these children.

Two girls, two boys. They are all in a group hug facing the camera, and the girl to the further right is the first to catch your attention. She has auburn eyes that perfectly catch the light, and her skin is a strange tone of tannish.. gray. Upon closer inspection, there appear to be rings of yellow around her eyes, and thick, curly dark hair that touches her waist. In shock, you realize she dons a pair of curled horns. Her teeth are perfectly sharpened, and almost creepy to you. 

The boy beside her looks less enthusiastic to be in the photo. He dons a pair of thick sunglasses, but your guess is that his eyes hold the same rings as the first girl's. His skin is the same shade of gray, but there are odd reddish blue colored cracks breaking across his skin, most prominent near his eyes. He is not smiling, unlike the others. His hair is short and brown.

The second girl is also smiling, with an excellent bob-cut that probably suggests she knew someone good with a pair of scissors. She's wearing some silly clothes, and would look the most natural among the group were it not for a strange pair of ears sticking from a blue hat she wore on her head. You couldn't see ears on her head like where yours were, only on the top. Strange.

The fourth boy looks very startled, with a nervous smile and eyes that suggest he was a bit anxious just thinking about this. Probably, you're just guessing. His skin is, yet again, the same shade, and his tawny gaze matches his pointy smile. The odd thing about him is the pair of white horns sticking firmly out from his head, curled only at the ends. 

You turn the photo over.

In a loopy, black scrawl, the words read: "Hybrids. December. Rooms 611-608."

Under that, the children signed their names. Or that's what it looks like, to you.

"Nepeta, Aradia, Sollux, Tavros".

This was. You didn't know how you should feel exactly, because a tight feeling forms in your chest, and you can hear your heart practically stuck in your throat. _Hybrids._ The word swum over and over in your vision, stuck on your tongue, and you reached back to grab the edge of the coffee table so you wouldn't topple over. You shove the photo in your pocket.

Brain. Mush. That's really all there is to say on the matter, it's too hazy to investigate any more here. 

Letting your body take the course that your mind is too exhausted to travel, you let your feet decide wheee to go. Thank God, they were probably ten times smarter than you were. And you weren't a big guy when it came to short naps, but god dammit if you needed one. 

Creeping around the edges of one of the buildings and pushing a creaky door open, you collapse on the nearest piece of furniture with a heavy groan. 

You're back in the room you were dozing in yesterday, your usual quarters, on the couch. Even after taking a bit to find the most comfortable position, you still couldn't sleep. You couldn't stop _thinking_. It was still early, and the boy (John) who came yesterday (because he wanted to) was not going to come back for now, if at all. Despite his promise that he would, doubt still nipped at your mind. But maybe you were just thinking too hard about the photograph.

You couldn't keep investigating, not now. Your head throbbed until you'd left, and even now you take out the photo every few seconds to rub your dirty thumb over the near handwriting, blow invisible dust from the faces of the (mostly) smiling children.

Did they live here? Yes. That was a fact, almost a perfect axiom. Did they die? You didn't know. Did they know you were going to die? You didn't know. But did they know you? Did you know these children in the photo? Even looking at them had hurt directly until you burned it behind your eyes, and your retinas ached from your eyeballs practically popping from your skull.

Aradia, Nepeta, Tavros, Sollux.

You _had_ to go back. But in the meanwhile, you could do some work. There were weeds growing out of cracks in the floor, and you were sure that your room was probably a dusty mess again.

Getting to it, you collect the weeds from the floor in a small pile, and throw that out before ascending slowly to your dwelling: room 512. The items collected in the living room are shown off and neatly organized, from shiny treasures to duller interesting objects. They rest on shelves, makeshift countertops, and are per-fucking-fect by your standards. In fact, you instinctively puff out your chest a little just looking at them. You take a Rubik's Cube in your hands, rolling it over your palms as you step into the hallway.

Your door is locked tight. Twisting your hand around the doorknob, you shove it again. Great. You must have accidentally locked it. Wait, no, that wasn't right. The door didn't have a lock to begin with. Even a shuffling noise from the other side is enough to confirm your now-panicking suspicions. Pressing your ear to the warm, burnt wood, you listen.

Oh, someone's there, all right. You curse under your breath and hear the _tink tank_ of someone else meddling with your treasures. But who?

John?

"John?" You rasp, rapping your knuckles on the door. The noises stop, then continue more urgently. You level with the door, and pull your weight back to ram into it. 

You don't exactly end up throwing the door off of its hinges or anything of the like, but you do manage to push whatever it was blocking the door well out of the way. The chair topples to the floor, and you don't see the intruder save for a lithe figure that has their back turned to you. You're across the room in an instant, but the stranger turns to you.

White hair and an unflinching steely gaze, the stranger stares you dead-on before you hear a low rumble. A growl? You can't distinguish much from them in the several seconds you hold eye contact. Their clothes are dark and heavy, presumably long white hair held back behind a hood. Hobo much? But, wait. You can't so much as tell what is it with them, save for another aspect that leaves you gaping.

Wings. White, feathered, and certainly healthy. They look at least ten times more powerful than yours, if more. The stranger holds them folded against their back, and they snarl at you again before making for the window. With a short growl, you move forward as well.

You reach out to grab a handful of the intruder's clothing, heart hammering, but a shock of electricity that tingles up your arm is enough to make you recoil sharply with a hiss lodged in your windpipe. Goddamn. Sure that you even saw the cackle of green, you glance up. The person wriggles out the door, and you shout in shock as you expect to hear a splat on the pavement below. 

"Hey, wait! Stop!" You shout, throat painfully dry and reminding of your odd situation.

Don't be stupid. Obviously they got up one way or another, and seconds later, wings flash as the stranger dives, and is soaring through the air in an instant. You'd honestly think to give chase. However, your wings are pretty much in a state of collapse, and you can do little until they heal.

When you look at your things, nothing is gone. You pour through the shelves and drawers, searching through discarded batteries and scraps of colorful fabric. The only thing that seems to be missing is a rock that you remember finding on the lower level. It was tinged green, glowed in the dark, and certainly caught your eye. So you took it with you. But why did the stranger take it? More importantly, how did they find you?

You think back to the photograph, but the stranger was not in it. And thanks to that, you couldn't place a name to their face. But you could certainly think of something better than "the stranger" or the "goddamn bird hobo who fucking rolled through a window for a shiny rock".

You settle on "Steel". No, wait, that wasn't right. That was certainly not their name, that was for sure. But the eyes of the stranger were an unrelenting silver that you would have been more afraid of had it not been for the fact that she had her dirty mitts all over your priceless goods.

What about that electricity?

Putting your head in your hands, you move to sit on the creaky bed. Everything was happening really fucking fast, honestly. You needed a break from all of this. Curiosity could go fuck itself with a rake. But then again, you think, it would probably like that. The kinky fuck.

You could always sleep for a while, that would definitely help to clear your head. But before you lay down and promptly drop off the face of the earth, you decide to close the window. You didn't want to wake up without a head.

==>

Screams and burns inhabit your dreams like a b-list celebrity to social media. You wake up with the final image of steely grey eyes flickering neon green with a shout, and in a cold sweat. Wiping your hand across your forehead grubbily, you sit up. The sun still shines through the window, and a watch on the partially burnt desk tells you its around five in the afternoon. But not that you'd honestly know, considering that some of these watches had different times set on them anyhow.

That meant John would be here soon. True to his word, he'd come yesterday. What would stop him from returning, other than some lousy authorities? Exactly. Well, you aren't really one-hundred percent sure. You'd like to give a good smack upside the head to the doubt lurking in your mind, but skepticism was a gift.

Wiping the blurry sleep from your eyes, you wobble when you stand and make haywire to find water in the bathroom to wash out your mouth with. You keep a supply in several two-liter bottles that you occasionally pick up at the pool. No, you don't fucking drink chlorine. You get it from the bathroom. Fetching water is a chore, but someone has to do it, and you don't want to die.

You take an (only slightly dirty) rag pff of the charred rack and pour water on it over the sink, giving it a good squeeze before wiping down what you could reach of your wings. Crust begins to form when you don't wipe them down for a few days, and it's honestly just really disgusting. Stings a (lot) bit, but the pain usually goes away quickly. You rinse out your mouth and wash your face in the light from the window before heading back downstairs towards the lobby.

A snort from the loveseat grabs your attention, and you look up to catch round, blue eyes staring back at you in unmasked amusement. "Hey, Dave." John greets, and you can see he's already slung his backpack down and eaten his lunch from the plastic wrap flung down on the floor.

He's wearing some ridiculous uniform, you think, a white button up under a gray vest with the tie and pants to match it. John's hair is even worse than yours, you think almost pridefully.

"Made yourself comfortable, huh?" You say, then add, "I have to clean that up, y'know. Would serve you better to pick up a bit, don't you think?"

John rolls his eyes, but he moves from his position to pick up the bits of plastic scattered along the floor. "Alright, Mister Clean, but only because I am a proper gentleman. Any other dilapidated apartment would probably be trashed by now!"

He stuffs them in his blue and black checkered backpack, then abruptly looks up, at you. Instinctively, you flinch, because you are a very weird looking person, but he's not looking _at_ you, you realize. John's looking at your arm with a strange gaze that you can't place, and you quirk an eyebrow at him in curiosity. He shakes his head, before pointing to your forearm.

"The skin on your arm is burned, and whitish green," he says, matter-of-factly, like it's a normal thing for a bird kid to waltz into someone's life with a black and green tinged arm.

The first thing you think other than _this kid is fucking nuts_ is: "Actually, it's a new lotion that I designed myself. When it's not busy being a disappointing lob of goop, it does wonders for your complexion, make sure to tell your friends all about it".

"Shit," you then say, simultaneously with John's "what the hell?"

No, logically, the first thing you _should_ have done was look down at your arm, which is what you are doing now. In fact, he's right. Your tanned skin is streaked with white, not pale, literally _dove-feathered white_ and tinged with the barest hint of lime green. You pinch the skin, just to make sure it's actually yours. Oh, whoop. It is. Joy.

"What happened?" John asks, fascinated. Then again, you can't blame him. You are a bird.. thing. It shouldn't be surprising that you could probably do shit like this, or at least not to John. For all he knew, you could be spitting fire and dropping mad prophecy like a cryptic storybook character at any moment.

"This?" You gesture to your arm like it's nothing. "This is the wound I got back in '07. Man, you shoulda seen it. Not like I could have been bouncin' around a battlefield without the deets, so naturally I sneak a bit to get the information I need. But, Christ in a sidecar, the guy didn't have to blow me out of the water like a discarded lottery ticket, ya dig?"

John doesn't look as dumbfounded as you'd expected him to be, and in fact, he just waves his hand dismissively. "Tell me."

You hesitate. "Well, so, there was this crazy hobo who bust in through my window- man I didn't think about it at the time but they musta been ten feet tall- and stole some shiny rock. Tried to grab 'em, and they grabbed _me_. Some sci-fi shit and tense seconds later, I feel this shock up my arm that rivals that of a crime show. I didn't really look at it afterwards, so there's that."

" _Shocking_ ," John drawls, and you might punch him for that pun it was incredibly lame, "did you see them really clearly?"

"Not really," you admit, "steely gray eyes, white hair that kinda fluttered back when they jumped out the window-"

"Hang on," John furrows his brows, "did you say that they _jumped_ out of your window? How many stories high up is your.. uh, room?"

"Five," you say, then go on quickly, "but no, they flew. Get that? Maybe the whole electricity thing is weird, but wings, John. _Wings._ Not, uh, slimy ass bargain flappers like these I have here, no. We're talkin' silky, first class angel wings that would make a holy priest gyrate the motherhoard like it had fucking indigestion."

John's eyes are wide, and he's stumbling over words when he talks this quickly, fingers gripping the seat. "Does that mean there are more people here that are like you, Dave? I didn't know that, I thought you were alone? Didn't you say you were alone?"

"I don't know who they were," you say, firmly, "and no one lives here except for me. Sure, there are buildings I haven't checked, but that doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to be a next-door neighbor."

"So there are places you haven't checked, then?"

"Yeah, there are plenty of 'em."

"Does that mean that someone used to live here other than you?"

"Of course," you say. "Obviously, there was someone else who lived here before I did. Look at all this junk- where else could I have found it?"

"Just making sure." John mutters. "Do you have any other evidence?"

You hesitate. Something tells you that you shouldn't really show John the photograph, since he freaked out at seeing just _you_ and went all-out sleuth on a funny looking mark on your arm. Of course, there were alternatives. There wasn't a reason for you to reveal the red carpet just yet.

"Do you want to go check it out?" You ask.

==>

John is the first to suggest that you check out the suspicious burned off areas of the apartment complex. He's the one to pull a map ("Out of all things! What kind of a kid are you?") out of his backpack and spread it out over the floor.

John sat on the floor in front of the loveseat ("Criss-cross applesauce.. haven't you heard of it?") and you sat across from him as he put the map between you both. His finger touches a crude ink-printing that you make out the be the apartment complex, and he clears his throat.

"I got a little interested in this place," John admits, "and why everything was just.. abandoned. Dad told me that this was a project from our old mayor that got discontinued after the election."

That was news to you. You didn't know about any of that until John told you. You almost ask again, but he drags his finger along the map, to the ash pile that was once a building. 

"This is where I think you should go first, because destroyed places are obviously suspicious," he says, before moving his finger a little east and past a road to what you know are the high sugarcane fields beyond that, "and here is the other place. I can already see that you think that's dumb, but trust me. I have seen a lot of movies, and the villain always goes for places that no one suspects."

"I didn't say they were evil," you remark, "they didn't try to kill me, though I am a bit pissed off about the entire situation."

John snaps his fingers, looking pleased. "Then that's that!" He says. "We'll head out to the sugarcane fields after inspecting that rickety old building."

"This seems kind of stupid," you say, "what if nothing comes up?"

"Then at least we had fun while we were doing it!" John exclaims, standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "Besides, I'm sure you haven't had any adventure in _eons_."

You can't argue with that. Dusting your pants off when you stand, you give him a moment to collect himself before he all but grabs you by the arm like you're ten and not a teenager (probably) and hauls you out the musty front door. Protesting (weakly), you allow John to haul you beside him to walk outside, in the looming shadow of the apartment buildings.

It's very bright outside, and the rays of sun warm your dully colored wings like nothing else. Swear beads off of you, and John seems hardly bothered. You could tell that easily, what with his deeply tanned skin. 

There is no distinct path from the buildings, and you walk in the parking lot beside planted trees and shrubs that are definitely overgrown from age and lack of care. He pulls the map back out of his pocket, unfolding it and holding it in a way that reminisces a ten-year old's pirate cartoons. You scoff. John _pffft_ s. 

The pile of destroyed building would be something to behold in a national museum. If the museum ran off of cheap b-list donations and was desperate like an abused housewife for a bomb new exhibit that didn't reek of false innuendos, you think sourly. John, however, is not gaping like you thought he would be. He doesn't look the least bit surprised, but determined, and he tucks the map back in this pocket before scooting to the mess and jumping onto planks of wood to sift through.

"This is a mess." John states, flatly, and you nod in agreement. "Where am I supposed to start looking? Get up here, Dave."

"Can't tire out the precious goods," you protest, but you end up hauling yourself onto one of the rubble piles to sift through either way.

Minutes pass without incident, you and John both silent in fruitless searching. The sun is unrelenting in its quest to absolutely _torch_ you, and not even the cool gust of breeze at your back can really help you right now.

"Is this it?" John asks, and you look up to see him holding a very odd looking green rock. Your first instinct is to nod, because, yeah, that looks strangely enough like the one that the stranger stole. But this one isn't sketched with black, but it gives off almost a warm glow of lime. Blinking, you scramble over to extend your hands out.

He drops the rock into your calloused grasp.

"It certainly looks the part." Sticking it into your pocket, you shrug. "Where'd you get it from, just lazing around the rubble?"

"Yeah, it pretty much was." John jumps off of the rubble, pointing a finger in the direction of the sugarcane. "We should get looking over there, next."

You give him a Look. "Seriously? But we just found this dazzling bit of gold in the dust, do we really have to keep looking?"

"Yes."

"Fine, then. But if anything turns the corner and snaps your head right up, I'm only telling the authorities what I _think_ I saw."

John responds with a scoff, pushing your shoulder lightly when you climbed down the pile. "Deal."

Soot blackens your pants where you had been, and you dust yourself again before tagging along as John walked towards the cracked asphalt road separating the apartment complex and the sugarcane fields. Stupid, whoever decided to leave them without a fence. Still, you hesitate at the edge of the parking lot as John takes his steps over the road. 

The area is deserted, thanks to the late afternoon time. The children came to the playground only earlier in the day. And it wasn't like anyone was going to visit the pool in

"Hey, Dave!" John interrupts rudely, looking over his shoulder at you. "Come on! I'll bet you hadn't had this much exercise in ages!"

"What month is it?" You ask, still hanging on the edge of the road. 

John tilts his head, gives you a look that clearly says _this kid is just really weird but okay_ , and says, "It's September. Why?"

"Nothing." You respond, before frowning as the asphalt, taking only a second more before shuffling after him.

John's already reached the edge of the sugarcane. Tall stalks of really fucking big grass that smells all too much of manure, but doesn't seem to bother him much. It towers high over you both, and John wraps his hand around one of the stalks and pushes it aside. "Where do we even begin?"

"Your idea." You say. "You got any ideas? I mean, the boogeyman could turn a corner with his motley crew and we'd be none the wiser."

"Shut up, Dave." He grumbles, pushing aside more of the stalks to step through. "Could you fly over, maybe, and get a good look of where to go?"

"Can't." That's your only response, but a frown pokes at your mouth. "I can't fly."

John doesn't question it, looking too deep in thought to even have heard you. Instead, he pushes away from the stalks and shrugs. "Maybe we'll come back once we have solid evidence that something's here."

"Then why'd you even have a map in the first place if nothing was here?" You ask, irritably. "Yeah, maybe the freaky bird hobo could come hide here, but why?"

John doesn't respond to your irritated belch of words, instead taking out the map and pointing a soot-covered finger to a spot just beyond the sugarcane field. A very large, very gray, very big building that makes your vision swim when you look at the name.

" _Noir Corporations_ ," John reads, clicking his tongue, "they say the place shut down ages ago, after the mayor stopped being.. well, the mayor! The reelections called for another guy, and bam! Bang! No more Noir."

"What did they do there?" You ask, tongue heavy and pretty much useless in your mouth. John shrugs, pushing back a few more stalks to take another tentative step.

"No one knows." He says, and you hesitantly follow. "I guess we'll found out, huh?"

"I suppose so," you say, and follow him into the foliage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hah, i lied and updated this a hell of a lot earlier than i should have. i was just too excited. next chapter should be the longest so far, and i have very big plans for how this fanfic will go. 
> 
> so far, the chapters have been short and detailed, explaining the aspects of dave's life with few insights and plenty of room for theory. so! stick around! leave comstructive criticism, your thoughts, anything you please! no story is ever complete without any help. thanks for reading so far!


	4. lies in sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In God 'tis glory: And when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \- John Dryden, "Absalom and Achitophel"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a few years. but i'm going to finish this story. i've deleted chapters that don't add anything to the story, and i've gone back through to edit the rest myself as well as add important plot details in small chunks. this story will be updated once a week, starting with next week. thank you for reading!

A man sat very stiffly in a corner of an otherwise mansion-like room. It would seem even bigger beyond that, if the man's herculean frame did not seem to be taking up the space. He sat, powerful, in a chair at a very expensive-looking desk, eyes flitting to and fro, even as the room remained empty.

Jack Noir was a name that was heinous. Atrocious, abominable, abhorrent. Objectionable, offensive, sinful,  _wickedly evil_. You could use any word in the dictionary to describe such a man, but it would not be enough. Words cannot always describe the way one feels, or acts. And anyone who'd so much as flinched under the massive man's steeled white glare would be quick to tell you that he was not a pleasant man.

In every sense of the word, Noir was a predator, in appearance, and in stature. Pointed nails tapped the ivory-colored finish of the desk, and a low growl rumbled in his throat. He cast a black, beady-eyed glare to the door, before back again. It was not an exaggeration to call Jack Noir horribly disfigured, with his scarred, snout-like face or his thick and grooved ink-black skin. Pointed ears stuck up abruptly, nicked and spotted with blood against his wild, dark hair. A chunk taken from his left limbs and replaced with an eye-shockingly metal arm and prosthetic leg. He wore the typical Dersian wear, but tattered to an extent: colorful, purple garb with a ripped yet still somewhat stylish purple suit and slacks. He wore only one dress shoe, the other leg ended in a very paw-like steel abstraction.

Jack was a monster.

And he always had been. Since becoming the mayor, and holding an incident dear to his own blacked crisp of a soul years back, he'd only come out of his office for the necessities. He became secluded, dark, and increasingly morbid.

But his assistant remembered. The dark-skinned assistant was without much of a name under Jack's ugly nose, reduced to "boy", or "spat" when Jack was in a bad mood. The assistant wore the same get-up, though rather less ripped and worn. He'd always lived in Derse, bur Jack was a boy who moved from a neighboring city from a young, crisp age. Kind and tender, he radiated a sense of leadership that persisted into his teenage years, and later on when he became the crisply charming assistant of the next up and coming mayor, William Vallence.

Jack adopted. It was not questioned. His adopted daughter was raised well in a secluded home not far from Derse's inside boundaries, and she was happy. She was like Jack in the sense of her happiness and strong smell for justice, and she was an excellent friend to any who graced her path. The assistant remembered the girl, fondly, and how she talked. She was a very bright girl with a very bright future.

The assistant snaps from his thoughts with the sharp  _clink clink_  of nails on the ivory-colored desk finish. Staring at Jack with wide amber eyes, he slowly makes his way to the desk as Jack's mouth opens to speak and displays sharp and misplaced canines that make the man shiver to the bone oh god oh lord please be real-

"Diamonds," Jack snarls, and Droog can only say that his breath is absolutely  _stinking_  of meat and death, "are you going to shake in your skin like a boy, or come forward?"

"I'm here, sir," Droog mutters, "what is it that you've called me for?"

It occurs to Diamonds that Jack looks unnaturally giddy now, his beady eyes shining in the dim light of the dark room. Jack sucks almost all of the air up with his murky aura. No shit.

"There have been rumors," Jack drawls, black tongue snaking out to lick over his teeth at his quick pause, "there have been sightings. A boy wandering the old experimental facilities. You wouldn't know of this, would you?"

"No." Droog says quickly, but realizes his mistake. "I mean, I have noted that there's nothing that should be in the area. The facilities were burned months ago."

"Do you remember what I said when I asked for you to annihilate every trace of her?" Jack whispers. "I said no survivors. Are there survivors, Droog?"

"I wouldn't know, sir." Droog admits, hesitantly. He looks at the haughty ruler with a hopefully stoic glance. "I haven't been there myself since I took the job."

"Exactly." Jack barks. "You didn't bother to see if there were survivors. Check, then, boy, and do not come back without answers."

The mayor's claws dig into established grooves on the desk, with soft hisses that caused Droog to cringe just slightly.  _Or else,_  bounced around, over and over, in his head. He looked to Jack, the crazed revulsion in his eyes, and slowly, slowly nodded.

"Yes sir." Droog whispered. "I'll get to it."

 

==>

 

Afternoon light flooded the single-room building through broken windows as John pushed the rusty door open with a grunt. He held it open as you walked in, releasing it afterwards with a steely  _clang_. You almost flinched, but said nothing.

The single room was full of taxidermal animals and humans alike, the stitches small enough to look very, very real. It sent a small quiver through your wings, and you instinctively flatten them against your back before quirking an eyebrow to John. He shrugged, waving a hand over the view of the dully colored studio. It looked much bigger from the inside, you thought, and John moved forward to begin his bit of the investigation. You watched silently as John sifted through papers on adjacent tables, before looking around yourself. The taxidermal animals glared you down, gaze unflinching even from their creepy look of death in the eyes. You touched one, a bird sitting proudly on one of the tables. Several jars varying in size of dead animals floating in formaldehyde stood beside it. Weird. But pretty cool. There was a lot in common with them. Though, they were dead. Maybe not so much.

John's voice snaps you back into the waking world, and you groan. "Hey, Dave, check out what I found."

"What is it?" You ask, mildly.

"Newspaper clippings." John says, then holds them up for you to see. Though you can't make out the cover image all that well, it looks like a young girl hugging an older man very tightly. "Here, let me read the main story."

"Be my guest." That's your answer, and you prop up to sit on the edge of one of the tables.

" _A Cure Found_ ," John begins. " _Pandora Majoris has come to us in eager air! She's stated that the experimentation has proved a success, and all tests underway will be brought to reality, beginning with the daughter of Jack Noir, William Vallence's assistant. Vallence was quick to report that the tests are entirely safe, as well as the infusion between the test subjects and the DNA provided from the animals."_

You blink.

" _Pandora is ecstatic to be on the team, reports say, and she has been a major contribution to the project. She has gone through testing herself for the disease, and has listed it as entirely safe for everyone involved.. the possibility of hybrid infusement plummeting is very low."_

"Wait." With a frown, you aren't ashamed to interrupt. "This girl.. she was sick? And went through.. what?"

"The Experiments," John explains, "my dad told me a little about them, sorta? I don't really know much, but that girl in the picture.. that must be Noir's daughter, right? And that's Noir."

"Okay. So she's the first chick to go through these experiments. What for?"

"Well.." John clicked his tongue. "My dad told me that a while back, before we moved here, that there was a corruption in one of the Crockercorp labs here. They were trying to find cures and stuff, blah blah.. but one of the employees got infected with a mystery disease. And they even had to close off the town and everything."

"Derse, right?" You prompt. "Then what?"

"Well, then this Noir guy and his daughter, I guess they were scientists, infused animal DNA with people so they could be strong enough to fight back the cure! And a bunch of people had to go for testing and everything for it."

"And that's what this place was used for," you mutter, as the words click just as they should, "this place was some kind of experimental facility."

"That must be it. And then.."

John looked pensive, then, just you and him staring at one another in the dawning realization. Your wings shift uneasily against your back, and silence falls quite suddenly.

Then John's intent look shifted, from your face to your shoulder, and you immediately stick your hands up in defense. "Hey, wait, let's not draw conclusions and say that--"

But you then hear it. A growl, long and drawn out like a sticky wad of gum. The smell of baited breath, and you curse your senseless stupid brain before turning toe and looking your offender right in the eye.

She is absolutely terrorizing, you realize. The once-dubbed "freaky bird hobo" stands almost smugly there, nose to nose with you, but taller. Her snoutish face is really an actual  _fucking snouted face_ , deformed horrifically and stricken through with ugly splotched scars. The face of the stranger was white- no, her skin was an incredibly stark white, perfectly white. Not just the pale color of a regular human, but a dovelike, creamish color that was reflected in the smooth sheen of her wings. She wore little but torn yellow rags, and one of her shoulders ended with stumpy remains of an arm. The stranger is all claws and teeth and rough edges and pointed ears on her forehead and angelic yet demonic all the same, and she is beautifully terrifying.

Her lips pull back in a snarl, and she speaks a single word: "Leave."

"Leave?" You squeak out, which is uncharacteristic of you in the biggest way, but you'd never experienced anyone so hideous and paradoxically alluring at once. "Who.. who are you?"

The creature hardly reacts. She does not look at you, nor does she look at John. Her eyes are trained on the entrance, her pupils small and beady. She makes an unintelligible sound, and you are repulsed.

Your jaw drops and you gape at her for what seems like a hundred years. She seems so complex and beautiful and misunderstood, like an Icarus burnt nearly beyond recognition.

"Leave." She says again, her voice as empty as her timeless. Her stumpy arm waves with her intact one, and she snarls softly. Yet, her expression is not threatening. You look up, confused, pulled away just as the gears were clicking into place. "Do not come back."

 

==>

The assistant carefully combed every nook and cranny he found of the dilapidated apartments, and his anticipations for this particular trip ran very low. That is to say, he walked through every room very quickly and found nothing but a pile of feathers and a load of trash. He knew there was nothing here. Everyone did. But Jack had said there was someone here,  _insisted_  that someone was here, and there was no choice but to follow orders.

If Droog had stayed longer than to just sweep through like a terrified rabbit, he would have noticed two very shocked teenagers stumbling out into the parking lot from the undergrowth.

But he couldn't risk Jack's violent, erratic behavior. He had returned with the feathers and possible information that a hybrid still lived in the old establishment for the experiments, and hopefully Jack was not feeling particularly in bloodshed kind of mood.

He dropped the feathers onto the scratchpost-esque surface of Jack's desk, those beady eyes watching him all the while, then diluting slightly. Droog shivered, but kept upright. Noir could probably smell his fear. Noir was threatening, something beyond anyone’s control.

To his unending surprise, the frightful creature that was Jack leaned forward in the chair, and  _sniffed_  the feathers. And he exhaled as quickly as he inhaled, blowing several of them from the desk. A maniacal look of glee shone on Jack's face, and his lips (or what looked like them) pulled back in a smile. Droog’s legs quivered.

"Do you know what these are, boy?" Jack asked, in a sickly sweet voice. Droog swallowed thickly, biting back a bubbling of fear in his mouth. He shook his head. Jack leaned closer, his animalistic eyes staring into the assistant.

"These are feathers. Do you know whose they are?" Jack asked, through clenched teeth, and Droog shook his head very quickly. "Dave Strider."

"Do you remember him?" Jack picked up a feather, twining it slowly between his thumb and index finger. "One of the first experiments to come crawling for a dose of heaven, to escape death. To defy God and play fate. Like a game. A very silly, very deadly, very horrifying game."

Droog strained, but was unable to remember anything. But he did not want to anger Jack again, and so he said nothing.

"He lived." Jack stated, furrowing his brows. "He survived. Do you know why he survived? Because he's resourceful. Smart. He knows where she is. He knows."

Droog was silent. Jack, repeating himself.

"I want him here. You have a week. I don't care what you do, spat. Bring Strider here, alive. He knows where she is, where she’s gone, where I can find her. Do not show your ugly mug around my office until you’ve found him."

"Yes, sir." Droog muttered. He turned to exit the room, only looking back once to see Jack smiling and staring at someone who was not even there.

 

==>

 

You'd promptly thrown an internal party once you realized that neither of you were dead after that particularly scary experience. It was a weird little jig that you did, but it was also mostly because there was also some grass stuck in your wings and that was getting kind of itchy.

Speaking of discomfort, you were incredibly sore in the knees from all this walking. Maybe John was pushing through the sugarcane stalks like it was a silk curtain, but your muscles were achy and you were probably going to blow a fuse or two before going to sleep. Even then, you'd be sore as hell in the morning.

But what Pandora (?) had said made you think. Surely she wasn't Pandora? After all, those reporters had talked to her. And judging by the look on John's face, you were sure that not many people had been exposed to that kind of thing before. Maybe you could ask him about it, but he seems deep in thought, and you don't want to disturb it.

You do anyway. "Hey, John. You ever seen a.. hybrid before that?"

It took you a second to say "hybrid", considering that you'd never used that particular word to describe yourself before. Until now. And it felt really.. odd.

"No? I mean, I'd seen you, I guess. But you weren't so..." John hesitated.

"Incredibly freaky looking? Monsterish?" You say dryly. "Well, yeah, no offense to her, but she there looked straight out of a spooky second-hand film. If so, I'm praising the CGI effects as we speak. Because that was really strange."

"True." John admits. "But we know a little more than before, I guess. Like about the experiments and stuff."

"Do you think that has anything to do with why she broke into my house ever so casually?"

"I don't know."

John pushes back the foliage to step into the dirty, asphalt road, and you furrow your brows as you walk out after him. Maybe you didn't know that. It was a little odd, after all, because what would she want with your rock? Sure, it was pretty and all, and it was probably your birdish instincts that shouted  _hey, that's mine!_  But that didn't explain what you wanted it to, or the ludicrous ties to your collection of items, or the way your head hurt when you looked at Aradia and her friends all lined up in smiles for a picture- not knowing that the building would go to such ruin.

Not knowing that they were playing God.

You wonder if they were afraid, or if.. If you were the one who did it.

No! That's ridiculous. You were too scared to even think about dying when you realized that living as a bird hybrid kid would be fruitless, so why would you burn an apartment down? There wasn't anything in it for you, and all you would have gained was the loss of your memories. But did you? Is that what you wanted?

The afternoon sky is fading into a jumbled mess of colors as the sun nears the horizon, and you're interrupted from thought by John tugging sharply at your arm with a deep frown.

"Hey, dude, snap out of it. You look like you're gonna hurl. I've got to go home soon, anyway, since my Dad is probably going to be worried or something." The funny look on John's face would have been a priceless joke any other day of the week, but it causes a tinge of guilt to pass through your head.

"Why are you helping me?" You blurt, but what you meant to ask is  _why did I do these terrible things, and why are you helping me solve my own crimes?_  John was just a kid who went to school and probably made good grades. He wasn’t the type to side with someone who defied God.

John looks a little perplexed, but pensive as well. He gives you a slight upturn of the lips. "Well, I've never met a hybrid before. Dad talked about them, and solitude and blah blah, but I didn't have  _reason_  to actually think that was real. And you looked lost, and lonely, so I guess you weren't as scary as I thought originally."

"Not by a long shot. Hey, don't forget my annual adult feasting. I like to think of villages as cakes, and the adults and children are the frosting and sprinkles."

"I wouldn't. You rake them in by the dozen." John mutters. "But you have to figure out what's going on, so I guess I decided I'd help you? I don't know about you, Dave, but I'd certainly want someone helping  _me_  if it was the other way around."

Would you help John? That's a difficult question. You can't put yourself into his shoes when you don't know what it's like, and you can't really say that you'd help a stranger out. That adds to your whole  _fuck fuck shit wow I am pretty much the bad guy here_  conscience, you think. But you weren't going to tell John to fuck off, either.

"Well, thanks." You muster a small smile, and a shrug. "Hey, maybe you'll get used to my dietary and start it up with me. We'll call it the Jave plan. Like John and Dave."

"That's ridiculous, and the worst name I’ve ever heard anyone give a plan." John scoffs. "But, hey, I'll see you tomorrow! Don't let the bed bugs bite. I'm at least one hundred percent sure that the apartment is full of them."

You roll your eyes, but you suppose his sense of humor is there to wipe away the awkwardness of the situation. But John just pats your shoulder (????) and snorts at your expression (is there something on your face?) before waving goodbye, and bolting off in the opposite direction.

You watched him run across the parking lot, backpack tottering to and fro as he sprinted. John turned a corner at the edge of the lot, and you could only listen until the pitter patter of his footsteps was no longer ringing in your ears.

 

==>

 

Your own harsh breathing was loud in your ears.

You think of the first time you tried dunking your head into the pool. How you'd tried to open your eyes, staring so sorely into the blue-green water that the world had disappeared and only the sound of your heartbeat broke through- echoing and distorted. It felt like you'd left everything behind, your stupid time and your stupid wings, before you pulled back up, sputtering water and feeling horribly disoriented.

You felt that way now. It was like you'd stumbled assfirst into a different world- suffocating and surreal and completely distorted in every which way. The room you were in was the same, the same furniture and ugly desk and carpet floor- but bleached with light from the window and actually not destroyed. Not burnt, not worn down with fire.

In what felt like slow motion, you watched your limbs move, felt your mouth move without you wanting to even speak at all. An invisible force seized hold, and made you shout.

"Hey, c'mere! Do you hear that?"

A girl bust in through the door, a wide-set smile all but tearing her face. Her teeth and smile themselves looked too big for her face, but her reddish eyes looked bright with excitement. "Did you hear it, too? I thought I heard that!"

_Aradia?_

You could see yourself in her yellowy, scarlet eyes- the pupils so dark. "Yeah," you said. "It sounded like--"

An explosion shook you, rang through your ears like her scream, long white spears of light piercing through the window against the wall behind you. It pierced you, pierced Aradia, and you turned to see a broken figure stretching over you. Growling, shrieking, howling its fury as its dark body snaked around you and froze your legs to the floor. Over the creature, you saw her, mouth gaping in fear and pupils blown wide.

But the creature was pulling faster, whispering, hissing, snarling. "Deception can hide in plain sight." It slithered around your feet like a slimly beast, yellow eyes into tawny red ones. "You are innocent, after all."

You wanted to scream, raise your voice, say you were anything but innocent, but your throat was closed tight. The words would not come, and the darkness ate at your vision with harsh bites, and drew you down and away.

_Defying God. Defying God. Defying God, defying God._

  
With a wrench of your lungs and a cold gasp, you pulled yourself up with a hoarse cry. Closing and unclosing your hands, you felt the tension ease itself from your bones as you blinked the blurriness from your eyes away. Your limbs felt heavy, everything did, and it was only a nightmare.

A terrible one. You could hardly remember any of it, but it was absolutely awful. That's what you knew.

Regardless, you square your shoulders and look around. You must have fallen asleep, in your own bed, in your own room. Pressing your lips together, you look out the window.

It's still dark. You don't know what time it is- you aren't some starry-eyed astronomer that knows all about the position and the stars and all of it. But it's definitely not near morning. Morning looks far off. Stars splatter the sky like white diamonds on a black canvas, mesmerizing in their bright twinkle of light. You stared for only a few minutes, before lowering yourself back into the bed.

Your wings didn't ache so much now. Raising an arm, you inspect the whitish green marks along your forearm. It gives off a soft, dull light in the darkness of your room. Curiously, you shift your wings a little against your back. The usual ache doesn't come, but only a little feeling like you've been pinched. Not bad.

Defying God. What did that mean to them, to John? Did you know much about what you would be doing? Aradia was so terrified. You clench your fists tightly, so tightly it stings. They were so young, and so were you.

Too tired to muster consciousness any longer, you close your eyes and allow for the dreams to drown you once more.


End file.
